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White House: Sequester 'deeply destructive' to defense

The president and his Democratic allies say that Republicans have put at risk the nation’s defenses. | AP Photo

Moreover, they argued, “sequestration would undermine investments vital to economic growth, threaten the safety and security of the American people, and cause severe harm to programs that benefit the middle-class, seniors and children.”

The hit list: Education grants, money for the FBI and border patrol agents, air traffic control management, safety measures for food and drinking water, and scientific research, among others.

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Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the Pentagon cuts could be reversed if Republicans are willing to raise taxes on corporations.

”It will happen the moment that Republicans decide that it is more important to protect defense spending than it is to protect tax breaks for oil companies and other special interests,” Van Hollen told POLITICO. “Republicans talk a big game on defense. They just don’t want to pay for it.”

The GOP contingent on Capitol Hill says raising taxes is the wrong way to go.

“The most sensible way to achieve the $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction required by the Budget Control Act is through commonsense spending reform, not a weakened national defense,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the fourth-ranking House Republican, said.

But many of Democrats’ favorite programs, including Social Security and Medicaid, were exempted from the pain as part of that debt-limit agreement, possibly leaving Obama less room to portray Republicans as insensitive to the needs of the most impoverished Americans.

Still, Democrats say Republicans would cut anything, including their beloved defense programs, to avoid tax increases that could be used to offset the planned spending reductions.

Many lawmakers have cast “sequestration” as a form of torture too painful to bear — both for the Pentagon and the domestic agencies that would have to make do with much smaller budgets than those to which they are accustomed. For that reason, there is optimism in some corners on Capitol Hill that Congress and the president will act to “turn off” the sequester before it takes effect next year. In particular, the Defense Department’s allies on Capitol Hill have emphasized comments from Obama’s own defense team indicating that big cuts would have a crippling effect on the Pentagon’s operations.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, lawmakers and administration officials say.

Congress and the president agreed to impose these across-the-board cuts to government programs when they cut a deal to raise the debt limit in 2011. The idea was to spur lawmakers and the president to come up with surgical budget cuts — or tax increases — rather than suffer the blunt force trauma of automatic reductions affecting everything but Social Security, Medicaid and a handful of other programs that assist the most impoverished Americans.

A “supercommittee”of legislators was designated to come up with a replacement plan, but that panel failed to make any progress on a deficit-reduction proposal. Fearful that the administration could play games in applying the cuts, Congress passed a law earlier this year requiring the White House to report on how the president would spread the pain.

FLASH--Mitt Romney will now start receiving intelligence briefings. Great! . Now all he needs is Obama's blackberry number so he can call and tell him what the hell is going on in the world besides the latest fundraiser. First Brian Terry,Now an ambassador and two Marines with MORE to come.Commander in Chief my rear end. More like CAMPAIGNER IN CHIEF.

its sad it had to come to this, but such is the state of affairs in Washington

Most conservatives are agreeable to revenue increase, BUT ONLY once we see significant budget cuts FIRST.

We have been fooled too many times in the past. This is shown to still be the case by the dems utter refusal to propose cuts in anything other than defense,,,and then, only those cuts in defense that are not in their districts.

Hey, these defense cuts aren't exactly good news to those DEMS who rely on donors who have defense contracts. I read somewhere that Pelosi was trying to walk back these cuts but that Obama wants to stick it to the Repubs as a bargaining chip for higher taxes on earners making $250,000+. This is more problematic for Pelosi's future as the speaker (again) than anyone else.

This is what Politico and the mainstream news media considers to be the big story of the day????

American embassies are burning around the world. American embassies being attacked, even in London. Bomb threats coming into universities around the country. Isreael may be going to war with Iran at any time, American ambassador is murdered, perhaps with the compliance of the Libyan government which was put into power by Obama.

And what are the Obama sycophants interested in? Why the fantasy world of Obama's campaign, where economic problems are all the fault of Bush and the Japanese tsunami, where American embassy attacks are not happening, where Obama does not NEED to attent security briefings because he's the smartest man in the world and already knows it all, where rigged polls show Obama leading just everywhere.

And where is Obama while the world is fallling apart? Why, he's out campaigning and raising money of course.

I don't know if Obama and his propaganda agents in the media are so wrapped up in themselves that they don't even realize that this stuff is happening, or if they think the American public is so stupid that if they don't report Obama's incompetence that we won't realize it.

But either way, we have a president AND a mainstream news that are BOTH incompetent at what they are supposed to be doing.

The truth is both sides wouldn't move, they wouldn't negotiate with the other, it was and still is my way or the highway with this congress. There is no give and take, no compromise on either side. Reid and Pelosi feet are set in cement and Boehner and McConnell feet are set in stone. It is party ideology over the good of the country for both major parties. Most congessional leaders of the past would have worked something out, but not today when compromise is a four letter word.

what would this lazy son of a ... Obummer know what the repubs are doing???? He is not even interested in the intelligence briefings he rather hang out with the pimp with a limp or the disgusting Letterman. But then again, the guy is disgusting too I'm sure he is missing his beloved Reggie Love.

If I were the mother of these guys killed or the embassador I would sue this guy for all he's worth. Why is he runnung again, he is too lazy to work. Let him go to Hollywood he fits in so nicely with all the Homos.

Sequester or continue to front and expand the underlying principles of Communism......... upon struggling American taxpayers and job creators who pay far too much combined tax at every level............ so the Statists can fund an increasingly overbearing and ever growing arrogant government with an increasingly nasty, arrogant attitude.........and the inevitable loss of freedom that comes with selling one's soul and corrupt the founding principles of a nation in exchange for a Nanny State and a dumbed-down population of bedwetters.

President Barack Obama on Friday detailed how roughly $120 billion in cuts to the Pentagon and domestic programs will be applied if Congress doesn’t shut off a planned “sequester” before the end of the year, casting blame on Congress for failing to bring spending and taxes into line and address the nation’s $16 trillion debt.

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | POLITICO

8/7/12 2:50 PM EDT

President Obama on Tuesday signed the Sequestration Transparency Act, which requires his administration to detail just how painful the sequester's cut will be.

Obama had until Wednesday to sign the bill, which passed the Senate by unanimous consent and cleared the House in a 414-2 vote. The Obama administration must lay out specifics about the $1.2 trillion in cuts to domestic and defense programs that will take place at the start of 2013 if Congress is unable to agree on another deficit-reduction plan before the end of the year.

You know, if the Dumb Jack signed it, he owns it! Enough with his damn whining and blaming. GROW UP, ‘BOZ!

We do not swear an oath to support, defend, and "BELONG TO" the government...

We swear an oath to support and defend the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES which is the instrument we all agree to that LIMITS and CONTROLS the amount of power government can assert over a free people.

Democrats clearly want some version of Soviet style totalitarianism. They want, nay, DEMAND that Americans swear oaths of allegiance to the Democrat party and its far Left Wing political ideology.

The frightening Democrat attitude, reminiscent of Stalinist style Cult of Personality, believing that Americans "BELONG TO" the government and are property of the government and that any rights that Americans have come from the government - instead of from God and nature...

...it's a clear warning sign that in the future people will say: "why didn't those idiot ancestors of ours see such plain evidence in front of their noses"

Always that claim by democrat politicians. How about you cut the spending on the union payments, cut union benefits, reduce overpaid government employee salaries, stop buying corporations and paying their unions, stop putting up signs around the country saying your stupid stimulus paid for it, how about just cut out the trillion dollar a year stimulus? Lets end the billions being sent to despotic and violent islamic regimes? Lets end giving money to solyndra like companies.

How about just cut out the government corruption and incompetence which accounts for 50 to 80 cents of every dollar spent.

I know I know, the liberals want to keep power so they will of course cut their welfare and threaten security, there is no way they will not pay their union and special interest owners.

The Sequestration is an example of our failed Republican controlled Congress. It is another example of rather than dealing with a problem, Congress just continues to "Kick the can" down the road for OUR KIDS and GRANDKIDS to deal with.

When are the Repubbies going to understand that at some time we will HAVE TO face the fact that we need to pay the bills we've been racking up over the last thirty years.

Google "Starve the Beast" to see how we got into the mess we're in today.

"Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now... My plan pays down an unprecedented amount of our national debt." - George W. Bush Used Car Salesman & failed American president - Said before adding $6.1 Trillion dollars that "our children and grandchildren" will have to pay back.

What garbage - Obama didn't care enough to go to national defense meetings - Hillary ignored warnings - The marines, where there were any - could not have bullets. In the meantime, Obama hugs idiots and laughs with rappers. Yes, we have an empty chair as leadership - at best!

Any reading comprehension in there? Do you even understand the article you are quoting? He signed a Transparency Act. That is what he "owns" as you put it. That is why they are releasing a report on the EFFECTS of Sequestration. That is the purpose of this law....